Photography in the Ultraviolet Spectrum

or "See the World Through the Eyes of a Bee".

For years I've wanted to mess around with UV photography. Unfortunately, all the websites on DIY UV seem to assume an infinite amount of money and access to specialized equipment on my part. There are two things that I don't like, when someone tells me I HAVE to spend a lot of money (quartz lenses starting at $3000) or that i need specialized equipment (Wratten 18A filters, not cheap either).

So I set out to do it my way, and here's my $5 solution to UV wavelength photography.

I was wracking my brains trying to find a UV bandpass filter, when, quite literally, a light bulb went off in my head. A blacklight bulb that is. Blacklight bulbs are formed from wood's glass. Wood's glass is a uv & ir bandpass filter.

There are two kinds of blacklight bulb (at least), incandescent and fluorescent. I tested both, good for you, because the fluorescent kind DID NOT WORK. This is good because the incandescent is safer to work with, and cheaper.

and break it, once you've broken it, take a piece that will cover your camera lens and work out a mount. I used the same mounting technique from my previous instructable. Okay, I cheated and used a glass cutter.

Here it is already to mount on my digital camera.

You'll need bright sunshine, and maybe a tripod, you can use flash, it puts out plenty of UV and gives you a different look.